Endocrine Abstracts

Overnutrition, increased macronutritient intake, physical inactivity, and ageing are associated with expansion of adipose tissue mass and cytokines, favoring in genetically and metabolically susceptible subjects, the development of insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome and diabetes. Adipose tissue distribution in human is dependent on genetic and environmental factors. The control of the rate of filling of adipocytes seems to be the main factor determining the local, regional...

In both Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T1, T2DM) there is stringent need to maintain A1C<7.0% since clinical diagnosis all life long. Large, prospective, intervention trials have proven that A1C<7.0% is the most (and the only!) effective mean to prevent onset of vascular complications of diabetes and/or delay its progression.In T1DM, it is mandatory to use basal+meal-time insulin. The gold standard is the continuous s.c. insulin infusion (C...

The control of fertility constitutes a global health issue, because overpopulation and unintended pregnancy have both major personal and societal impact. Oral contraceptives (OCs) have been the gold standard for contraception since their introduction in 1960. They are used for both their contraceptive and noncontraceptive benefits. Hormonal contraceptives are made of either oestrogen-progestin combinations or progestins alone. Attempts have been made to use other classes of st...

Multiphoton microscopy has defined standards for 3D fluorescence and higher harmonic generation analysis of cells and tissue structures in vitro and in vivo. Compared to single-photon excited confocal microscopy, two-photon microscopy utilizes near-infrared (NIR) excitation generating twice to multi-fold enhanced tissue penetration, reduced light scattering and minimized phototoxicity and photobleaching at out-of-focus regions, yet preserves submicron spatial res...

Phaeochromocytoma (PH) and functional paraganglioma (FPGL) are neoplasm of chromaffin tissue that synthesise catecholamines and are mostly located in adrenal medulla (PH) or elsewhere (FPGL). Patients may also harbour non-secreting head and neck paragangliomas (PGL). Up to ¼ of PH/PGL are familial. A high degree of suspicion for PH and FPGL should be risen in case of spells, resistant hypertension, family history of PH/PGL, a genetic syndrome that predispose to PH (e.g. M...

The past 15 years resulted in a great progress of our understanding regarding the genetic basis, pathogenesis, symptomatology, laboratory diagnosis and differential diagnosis of hypercalcemic disorders both of those occurring seemingly sporadically and of those developing in a familial setting. Since serum calcium measurement takes as part of the routine laboratory screening examinations the number of asymptomatic and also of familial cases of primary hyperparathyroidism are i...

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) which is a worldwide public health problem has been recently recognized as a cause of neuroendocrine dysfunction. Pituitary dysfunction due to TBI may be partial or complete and in retrospective studies as many as 25–50% of patients have been demonstrated to have some degree of pituitary hormone deficiencies. Recently five prospective studies investigating the 12 months follow-up of anterior pituitary function after TBI have been published. Ba...

MicroRNAs (miRNA) are small (18–24 nts) non-coding RNAs which are part of an evolutionarily highly conserved intracellular mechanism to regulate gene expression in a sequence-specific manner. These regulatory RNAs function by acting as sequence-specific guides which recruit multi-protein complexes to target mRNA sequences which are subsequently silenced. miRNAs are processed from primary transcripts (pri-miRNA) by cellular components which are also at least partially invo...

Prolactin (PRL) is a peptide hormone and secreted by the lactotrophs in the anterior pituitary gland. Its secretion is regulated by the hypothalamus and under control of inhibitory effect of mainly dopamin. Gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) and other unidentified prolactin-release-inhibiting factors has also effects on PRL secretion. Thyrotropin-releasing hormone (TRH) is a prolactin-releasing factor. Vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP), oxytocin and galanin are the other probabl...

Osteoporosis is the most common metabolic bone disease. It represents significant burden due to fractures and costs for the health system and individuals. There are several factors which increase the risk of osteoporosis, genetic, hormonal and environmental influences are the most important. The primary goal of early intervention is to prevent the fractures. This could be carried out by the influence on bone density and quality, normalization of bone turnover, regulation of ho...

Disorders of sex development (DSD) include a heterogeneous group of heritable disorders of sex determination and differentiation, formerly termed ‘intersexuality’. This includes chromosomal as well as monogenic disorders, which inhibit or change primarily genetic or endocrine pathways of normal sex development. However, in most patients affected, no definitive cause for the disorder can be found. Therefore, the birth of a child with ambiguous genitalia still represen...

Metabolomics is a discipline dedicated to the global study of small molecules (i.e. metabolites), their dynamics, composition, interactions, and responses to interventions or to changes in their environment, in cells, tissues, and biofluids. Metabolites are the end products of cellular regulatory processes, and their levels can be regarded as the ultimate and amplified response of biological systems to genetic or environmental changes. However, only in the past years, technolo...

Advances in the diagnosis and treatment of childhood, adolescent and adult cancer have greatly increased the life expectancy of young women with cancer, but have resulted in a growing population of adolescent and adult long-term survivors of childhood malignancies, who may experience premature ovarian failure (POF) and infertility as a result of aggressive chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatments (indicated for both cancer and bone marrow transplantation (BMT)).<p class="a...

According to the WHO classification system the majority of endocrine tumours of the gastrointestinal tract (GI-NETs) are considered as being well differentiated benign or malignant tumours. Almost all GI-NETs are derived from enterochromaffin or Kulchitsky cells that can synthesize, store and secrete serotonin. The majority of these tumours are non-functioning and their presentation is non-specific. Functioning tumours, may exhibit protean clinical presentation, depending on t...

The most frequent problems of the morphological diagnosis of thyroid tumors with clinical relevance will be discussed under four major headings:(a) Differential diagnosis of follicular patterned lesions: follicular adenoma (encompassing adenomatous lesions of multinodular goitre), follicular carcinoma and follicular variant of papillary carcinoma. In this setting we will discuss the role of cytology (nuclear features), immunohistochemistry (Ki67/MIB1, CK...

The history of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) has been marked out by successive ‘earthquakes’, the perception of which has been reflected by the evolution of prescription curves. Early hormonal treatment protocols included estrogens only and have lead to an increased relative risk of endometrial cancer. This risk returns to baseline if a progestin is associated to estrogens for at least 12 days/28.Then based on interventional studies as well as in vitro dat...